


Right Side of Rock Bottom

by ChemWitch



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Heart Event, One Shot, implied emotional abuse, leah has anxiety, leah's POV, my take on leah's 10-heart event, spoilers for leah's relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 17:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18974365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChemWitch/pseuds/ChemWitch
Summary: My take on Leah's 10-heart event, written 3rd person Leah's POV.[Leah surprises Player with a picnic, but is surprised herself when her ex crashes the party.]





	Right Side of Rock Bottom

Oh, Yoba, Leah was nervous.

 

She’d double-checked her basket, triple-checked the clock, and was now just pacing around her cabin anxiously. Why wasn’t time going by faster? Why had she gotten up so early? 

 

Finally,  _ finally  _ the clock struck 11AM. Leah briefly looked over her reflection, tucking a few strands of hair back into her messy braid, and exhaled sharply. She could do this. She would do this. Everything would be fine. It was just a simple picnic.

 

What could go wrong?

 

She exited the cottage and took a deep breath of fresh forest air. Beautiful birdsong and the soft, relaxing  _ swish _ of the lake water mixed with the sounds of her footfalls as she made her way to the pre-selected picnic spot. 

 

Not that she had planned this, in detail, agonizing over whether the inscrutable farmer would like the food, the spot, the gesture in general. She definitely hadn’t done that. 

 

Leah set up a makeshift table that she’d built herself as quickly as she could. The farmer stuck to a loose schedule, and she couldn’t know exactly when she’d be walking by. As Leah set out the dishes of food she’d made, she felt both relief and panic simultaneously. Relief because she’d been able to complete the setup before seeing the farmer and panic because what if today was the day she didn’t show up? What if the schedule suddenly changed?

 

Preparations complete, all there was left to do was wait. With each moment, the internal alarm grew just a bit louder, just a bit more unreasonable. What if the farmer had found out about her plans? What if she was avoiding Leah now? What if she’d heard something from someone back home? Luckily, Leah’s panic didn’t have a chance to rise to critical levels before she heard the rustling and soft thudding of someone approaching.

 

The farmer paused as she saw Leah standing sheepishly near a rough-hewn wooden table. Leah felt her heart leap into her mouth as she cleared her throat and tried to speak. She felt the farmer’s eyes trained on her with a quiet intensity. Leah wished the other girl would speak. She wished someone would fill the silence that was becoming increasingly more uncomfortable for her as she tried to find her own voice. She knew, however, that this wasn’t the way the farmer operated. She was on her own until she could get some words out.

 

“Hi… I knew you’d be passing through here today…” She heard her voice crack and stopped. She could feel her face getting red. When had she become so  _ embarrassed _ ? About everything? It seemed like every time she thought of the farmer, her face flushed and she couldn’t find the words. Hadn’t she always been so damned self-assured back in the city? What had happened to her? Why couldn’t she just do things the right way for once? 

 

The farmer nodded gently at her, an indication to continue. Leah took a deep breath to stop her spiraling thoughts and powered through the awkward silence. “... so I put together a surprise. It’s a little picnic for us!” she finished, as brightly as she could. 

 

The farmer hadn’t turned and left yet, and so without waiting Leah turned to the table and gestured towards the dishes, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart. “This is a vegetable medley with my special spice blend, and this is a fresh salad made from greens that I foraged right here in the forest!” She faced the farmer again and smiled at her. She received a dazzling smile in return, leaving her feeling momentarily starstruck.

 

The farmer said nothing, but sat down, and Leah felt herself relax. She sat next to the other girl at the table and the two shared a meal in companionable silence. 

 

Despite her usual reticence, the farmer was the first to break the quiet, saying only two words. 

 

“Thanks, Leah.”

 

Perhaps it was because of the quiet and confident way she carried herself, but every word the farmer spoke seemed as if it carried the weight of ten of Leah’s own. Even these, the smallest possible words of praise, had Leah absolutely beaming, nearly bursting with joy from the inside.

 

But the worst part hadn’t yet come. Leah felt the anxiety, but the farmer’s words encouraged her to finish what she’d started here today. She tried to emulate the farmer, sitting up straighter and speaking thoughtfully, not in the rushed, stop-and-start sentences from earlier. 

 

“Sparrow, um…” Leah started, using the nickname for the farmer she’d teasingly used the night they’d reached the fruit together. Not a great start to her ‘emulate the farmer’ idea. Why did this have to be so  _ hard _ ? She could never find the right words. She could never say the right thing, look the right way, do what she was supposed to. This was never going to work. They should both just go home now, quit while everyone was ahead.

 

The farmer turned her body, facing Leah as best she could. Leah had done the same, and their knees brushed together, stopping Leah’s thoughts in their tracks. How could that small point of contact be so distracting? Inhaling deeply through her nose, Leah made eye contact, holding it despite her own discomfort. She would power through and say this. She would do this one thing right this time and she needed the farmer to feel the sincerity of the words, needed them to hold the same weight that a simple “thanks” of her own would carry. 

 

“I just want to say thank you… for helping me get one step closer to becoming a real artist.” Leah felt herself brace for the laugh, the sneer, even a look that would remind her that she would never be a “real artist”. That she should have stayed in the city and gone back to school. But nothing seemed to come.

 

And then the farmer was doing something totally unexpected. She leaned in slowly, touching her nose to Leah’s. Leah felt her chest hitch at the closeness. She felt like her heart hadn’t slowed down in ages. How long could a person live with an elevated heartbeat? She felt the farmer’s breath on her face. Leah could feel herself breathing hard, and felt shame flood through her. How was the farmer so damned calm all the time? Her breathing was even, just like her. Always steady. She felt herself wanting to pull back, to retreat to a place where she wouldn’t be so vulnerable, but she also couldn’t do that. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to look except at Sparrow’s gorgeous blue eyes. Yoba, they were a beautiful shade, like the lake on a clear day. She might never get another chance like this.

 

They stayed sitting like that for a long moment, faces close enough to kiss but not quite there,  the farmer studying Leah with her weighted gaze, before the farmer finally pressed her lips to Leah’s. Somewhere in the back of her mind Leah realized that the other girl had been giving her a chance to pull away. This thought was distant, muddled, lost in the anxiety and bliss of being so close to this woman she adored. 

 

The kiss was soft and sweet and unhurried, like everything Sparrow did.  _ Her  _ Sparrow. And, like everything she did, it was deep. Meaningful. Yet it was over all too soon when the farmer drew back suddenly. Too quickly, she turned and looked down the road leading to town, something drawing her away.

 

Leah followed suit, panting slightly, trying to hide how undone she’d become from just one kiss. 

 

This got a lot easier when she realized why the farmer had ended the moment so abruptly. It felt as if she’d been drenched in ice water when she heard a familiar voice ring out through the clearing, moments before its owner appeared.

 

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Leah’s ex-girlfriend stalked towards them, tone accusatory. It would have been an almost comical dramatic entrance, had Leah not been frozen in fear and shock. 

 

This, still this, after two years? A feeling of despair washed over her, but she couldn’t keep standing there staring. She had to say something. Anything.

 

“Kel? What the hell are you doing here?” Leah’s voice didn’t come out as hardened as she wanted. Like it always did when she was around Kel, her voice changed in the wind until it sounded small and soft, not worthy to be heard. As always, she felt herself tense, felt herself fold in, become smaller, become less.

 

“Didn’t you see me at the art show? I came all the way from Zuzu City to see your sculptures...” Kel sounded… hurt. Leah felt herself start to thaw, to melt the way she had in the old days. Kel had come to see her art? To support her dreams? Leah felt a thin ray of hope start deep within her. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping for, or why, but the idea that Kel had come all the way out here just to support her opened a part of her that desperately needed acceptance from someone she’d shared so much with, for so long.

 

“... And to get you to come back with me. I want things to go back to the way they were. I miss you, babe.” And just like that, the illusion shattered. The small piece of hope solidified into a pit in her stomach, making it turn. Nausea overtook her briefly.

 

Leah did her best to shake off the hurt and the humiliation of that stupid, pointless moment. She gathered her courage. She tried not to think about how her voice still shook, revealing her fear. She focused her attention on a spot on the ground, not willing to meet eyes with Kel. Words would have to be enough. “Yuck, don’t call me that! You never supported my art before… and now that I’ve had some success you want me back?” 

 

Still not looking, not even to see what kind of look Kel had on her face, Leah charged on, delivering the final blow. “You make me sick.”

 

With that said, terrified and determined, she turned and walked to the edge of the water, her head held high. She felt tears beginning in her eyes. Her hands trembled, and now her heart thumped in a way that had her missing the pounding heartbeat she’d lamented just minutes earlier.

 

She just wanted Kel to leave. Please, just let her go. She knew that she was small, and weak, and pitiable, but she would give anything to make this stop.

 

“Hey! Come here!” Kel’s voice twisted with anger, beginning to sound a lot more like the one Leah had once been intimately familiar with. She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough to survive another head-on collision with Kel. 

 

She heard the farmer step in front of her, heard the quiet murmur of her voice as she tried to talk Kel down, tried to defuse the situation. The tears became harder to control, and she felt a couple slip down her cheeks. Her sweet Sparrow, caught in the middle of this. Forced to use her beautiful, meaningful words on something unworthy of them. Always working to help, even when the situation was hopeless.

 

“I have nothing to say to you. Get out of my way.” Hard words, spat like daggers. The threat of violence hidden not far underneath them. Leah would not turn.

 

“Seriously, Leah. What are you doing out here with this simple-minded bumpkin?” Sneering, ugly, closer than before. 

 

For perhaps the first time, rage rose in Leah instead of fear, instead of shame. Before she’d realized it, she had turned to face Kel. 

 

And for perhaps the first time, she looked Kel in the face, her own face full of defiance and outrage.

 

And definitely for the first time, she drew her fist back and punched Kel in the gut as hard as she could. 

 

While the girl was bent over, sputtering and clutching her midsection, Leah bit out sharp words of her own. 

 

“This ‘simple-minded bumpkin’ is a better person than you in every respect.”

 

She sidestepped Kel, returning to the farmer’s side. “Let’s go, Sparrow. I don’t think Kel will be bothering us anymore.”

 

The farmer blinked at her once, slowly. Then she turned to walk deeper into the forest with Leah. Leah noticed she was careful not to walk too close, and for a moment she felt a gnawing around her heart. This… encounter with Kel had ruined her chances with the sweet farmer. She’d seen who Leah really was, what she really was. No one could blame her for regretting what happened earlier. But it didn’t make it any less painful.

 

Leah was stuck in these thoughts when she felt the farmer’s hand brush her wrist. She started, and realized that the other girl had stopped. She had taken that hand and begun rubbing the back of her neck, taking her own turn at looking sheepish. 

 

No. Not now. Not when they were so far from her house. Not when she and the farmer had to go back the same way. Couldn’t she do this at the door to Leah’s cottage? Then there would be a quick escape, an easy place to experience the hurt. Not here, please not here. Leah would handle this like someone stronger than she was, but not here. She just wanted a moment longer with this brilliant, beautiful girl. 

 

The farmer’s voice broke through her panic. Now she looked… Leah was having trouble attaching her body language to an emotion. The farmer shifted her weight between her feet once, twice before speaking. She looked at Leah with those beautiful, inscrutable eyes, and Leah could swear she saw tears shining in them for a moment. Her stomach clenched, preparation for what was coming.

 

“Thanks, Leah,” she said with some effort, an echo of her words from earlier. 

 

Leah realized, suddenly and with force, that her farmer wasn’t trying to make an excuse to duck away from her. She was, instead, trying to find adequate words to express her gratitude for Leah’s actions. 

 

Leah felt herself grow just a little bit. Become more than she had been. She reached out to grab her Sparrow’s hand, grinning.

 

“Let’s find a more secluded spot this time.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic, please be gentle. I haven't written anything in years, but I needed to write some Leah fic. There's not enough love for Leah. 
> 
> Please note that most of the dialogue is taken from Leah's 10 heart event in SDV, with minor tweaks to better suit what I was going for here. I did not write this dialogue and in no way do I claim it as my own.
> 
> I had this idea that Kel was actually emotionally abusive to Leah and now won't leave her alone even though it's been a year or more since they were together (long enough for her budding romance with the farmer to begin). And then... this one-shot kind of took form. Thoughts are appreciated.
> 
> (And yes, I took the title from Hailee Steinfeld lyrics. It felt like it belonged)


End file.
